On Tuesday, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. Space Command will move its headquarters from Colorado to Huntsville, Alabama. This is a change from the Biden administration’s decision to keep the command in Colorado.
Trump spoke from the Oval Office and complimented Huntsville, which he called “Rocket City” forever. He also stated that Alabama won the long fight over the basing decision.
Trump also took questions about crime in big cities throughout the event. When asked if he would send the National Guard to Chicago, the president said, “We’re going in,” but he didn’t say when.
He said he thinks he has the power to act even if Illinois officials don’t formally ask him to, and he claimed that Baltimore is part of the plan.
When asked about Washington, D.C., Trump said that the capital is “now safe” after recent federal deployments and praised the city’s cooperation with federal authorities, which is different from how he has criticized leaders in other places.
The White House then posted a harsh message addressed at Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, saying that local news reports said that almost 60 people were shot and at least nine were murdered in Chicago during Labor Day weekend.
The piece put together quotations from Pritzker regarding the city’s plan and made them sound excessively laid-back. It also told them that “you don’t have to live like this.” In the piece, the Chicago Sun-Times, ABC News, and WTTW were given credit for those numbers.
After years of jockeying, the move to base has economic and political consequences for both Alabama and Colorado. The Air Force picked Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville as the best place in 2021, but the Biden administration eventually decided to keep the command in Colorado for readiness reasons.
On Tuesday, Colorado’s bipartisan congressional delegation spoke out against the reversal and promised to “take the necessary action” to retain Space Command where it is. They said that moving the command would hurt U.S. space defense and waste taxpayer money.
“The Colorado Attorney General’s Office has been preparing in the event the president made such an unlawful decision to move Space Command HQ. If the Trump administration takes this step – I’m prepared to challenge it in court,” Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement.
Trump linked the news about the move to bigger allegations about election policy, arguing that Colorado’s mail-in voting system was bad for the state. He connected this to his long-standing, unproven critiques about mail-in voting.
He also hinted at an appeal to the Supreme Court over a recent appellate verdict that limited his tariff powers, and he briefly mentioned a U.S. strike on a “drug-carrying boat” leaving Venezuela.
State and local leaders are pushing back against the president’s plan to send federal soldiers to Chicago and Baltimore because they say he doesn’t have the power to do so without their permission. If he goes forward, he will likely face lawsuits.
While asking about Russia- Ukraine conflict , he just said that he is keeping a careful eye on things and he didn’t say anything new about the Russia-Ukraine war.
Next, what to watch —
— How the Pentagon plans the Space Command move and if Congress or the courts try to stop it.
— If the administration sets a legal path and timeline for any deployments in Chicago or Baltimore, and how governors and mayors react.
— Any new public safety data in D.C., Chicago, and Baltimore to see if the administration’s claims about crime trends are true.
• If the administration goes ahead with deployments despite state opposition, there will probably be legal challenges.
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